Bluehost vs. Wix: Free Websites or Paid Hosting?

Bluehost is one of the major web hosting companies in the world. Bluehost, as a hosting company, always ensures that there are a variety of plans to scale up sites for their users. On average, Bluehost provides an uptime of around 99.9%. Bluehost’s good track record has given it an added advantage over every other hosting company. Bluehost presents a variety of hosting plans with responsive customer service support. 

WIX is regarded as one of the most popular site builders on the web. This hosting company began work around 1996, and it was founded by Matt Heaton. Wix provides services for over 37 million websites around the world. WIX gives a chance to non-tech people to build their own websites with little experience.

Bluehost Overview

Bluehost is widely regarded as one of the best hosting companies in the world, and it is also one of the most commonly used web hosts. This is the hosting provider that the WordPress official recommends for its users. 

Bluehost focuses on reliability above every other feature, and Bluehost presents various hosting plans with responsive customer service support for a beginner. Large businesses also enjoy numerous hosting plans offered by Bluehost, and Bluehost has many features that allow users to build and grow their sites.

Matt Heaton first created Ocatch.com before finally settling for the successful Bluehost in 2003. He founded the company to serve as a free hosting company at the time.

Since then, Bluehost has continued to grow into a company that has to manage high demand from time to time. Bluehost has been serving its customers across the globe with reliable, affordable, and high-quality service. Bluehost has continued to grow stronger and now has over 750 employees. According to certain stats, the company hosts over 2 million websites around the globe.

One thing that gives Bluehost a competitive edge over many other platforms is its partnership with WordPress. The collaboration has lasted over ten years. Bluehost provides support for WordPress in terms of full-time staff dedication, and it also provides a dedicated engineering team for WordPress core development. This partnership has continued to give Bluehost an affordable and high-performing hosting service for WordPress.

The Pros of Bluehost

  • An incredible server uptime

One advantage of Bluehost is that it allows high website uptime. On average, Bluehost provides an uptime of around 99.9%. The essence of high uptime is to reduce the risk of losing revenue. 

  • A fast server speed

Though Bluehost is not the fastest host today, its loading speed is enough for most website owners who require a good loading speed. The Bluehost server’s speed depends on the hosting you are using.

  • Daily bundle backups

Bluehost does not joke with the aspect of backup as a hosting company. Every day, Bluehost provides backups for all their hosting plans, and they also offer website restoration for their hosting plans. Although these backups are limited, at least it saves you from losing all your data entirely.

  • A beginner-friendly host

For a beginner that needs a hosting provider, it is advisable to go for Bluehost. They provide a great onboarding experience for customers, which is beginner-oriented. Bluehost has a clean and straightforward interface that makes making the changes you want easy. They help in finding the right hosting plan for your needs. It also helps very much when it comes to setting up hosting. Tutorials are also available in case you run into any problems. 

  • A long and good track record

Without a good record, it would be difficult for any hosting company to last at this present time. Bluehost’s good track records have given it an added advantage over every other hosting company. They always make sure they attend to the customer as soon as possible.

  • Very flexible and scalable

Bluehost always ensures that there are a variety of plans to scale up sites for their users. This is why Bluehost still remains one of the best hosting providers today. The Bluehost team ensures that every process is painless for its users.

  • Customer support and Documentation

There is a multitude of different support options for customers. The company provides the option of live chat and phone support for different hosting types. Bluehost also has an extensive knowledge base available for users who prefer self-help.

  • App and integration library

Due to the massive application library on Bluehost, it allows users to make use of different services and software available. 

The Cons of Bluehost

  • Increase in renewal price

One of the significant issues associated with hosting companies is that there is always an increase when it’s time to renew. Bluehost is also one of the hosting companies that do this, they give an enticing offer to a new customer at first, but when it is time to renew your hosting plan, the renewal price is drastically increased.

  • Limitations to unlimited hosting

Most hosting companies will advertise that their hosting is unlimited, whereas, in the real sense, it is limited. Unlimited hosting in Bluehost means that the company will do its best to provide users with the necessary resources to grow their sites.

  • The high cost of upgrading and add-on features

The cost of upgrading an account is quite expensive. In addition to that, the add-on is also costly on Bluehost. You will pay a higher fee for upgrading your server, security, etc.

  • Lack of free site migration

Another downside of Bluehost is that they do not offer free migration services, and you will have to pay a migration fee if you want to move over your site to Bluehost. Most other hosting companies provide free migration, but there is an uninterrupted site transition on Bluehost due to the high level of experts handling its migration.

What is Wix?

WIX is regarded as one of the most popular site builders on the web, and it is probably the most user-friendly. Its origin can be traced back to 2006. At first, WIX was developed as a platform based on flash. But due to various problems associated with flash, in 2012 the team changed it from flash to HTML5. 

Currently, Wix provides services for over 37 million websites around the world. WIX allows non-tech people to build their own websites with little experience. As a result, the cost of a website is reduced. With the help of tech, it is easier to create your own website or blog.

Through its What You See Is What You Get(WYSIWYG), editors, drag, and drop can be used to perform a lot of activities. This allows the user to select, resize and position any virtual object within the platform with ease. Wix will enable users to place elements wherever they wish to be compared to other hosting website builders. Wix gives you the opportunity to animate tests and other elements.

Due to its friendly platform, businesses that deal with creative niches such as photography, freelance design, and musicians, among others, prefer Wix to other hosting companies. Wix has specific tools and functionalities that allow people to quickly drag and drop to build their website. Wix is an ideal web-building solution for businesses such as restaurants, builders, law firms, small companies, hobby businesses, mommy start-ups, and artists, among others.

The Pros of Wix

  • Good site speed 

If you want a host that will provide good site speed, Wix is a good option. It has rapid building capability, and Wix is speedy. So many tech companies have rated it as the best hosting company when it comes to speed. 

  • A massive template collection

Though most site-building resources have templates. Wix offers a vast variety of templates, which saves the user the hassle of building the site from scratch. WIX has over 500 templates from which a user can pick to build a website. It ranges from boilerplate corporate to travel and tourism. All the templates come with some basic pre-entered content. With pre-entered templates, the user can either build on them or start from scratch.

  • An intuitive drag-and-drop interface

The drag-and-drop interface on Wix makes it easier for a beginner to use. There are numerous options for making your site a powerhouse. The Wix editor is very mobile; you can easily preview and edit your site to optimize it for mobile devices or any device.

  • Ability to extend sites features

This hosting company has an application called the Wix App market. This app market offers some tools to improve the editor’s partial features, making it easier to perform specific tasks on your Wix site. It has an ecosystem of apps for users to take advantage of.

  • Easy marketing of sites

We are all aware that SEO is critical for increasing traffic. Wix provides in-built SEO management, which massively helps optimize your website for search engines.

  • A lot of extra features

Wix is improving every side daily to prove itself as the best hosting company. To prove this, Wix has built an entire ecosystem of tools and products to help people create websites successfully. Wix also has numerous internal features that are useful and important for site owners to have and use, and the interesting part is that they are all embedded within the same plan.

  • Variety of help and support systems

Any hosting company needs to put help and support for its customers as its core value. In this regard, Wix does well. There are a large number of amazing videos from Wix you can watch, and this will make using Wix easier for you.

The Cons of Wix

  • Non-interchangeable templates

It isn’t possible to move content from one template to another. This is because it is a site builder; hence, there is nothing serious here except a word of caution. Pick your template carefully! If you change your mind later, you will have to manually shift over all the content you’ve created on your original!

  • Wix branding 

We all know that everything cannot be entirely free, and there is a catch for users who choose Wix and stay on its free plan. When Wix hosts a free website, the website will have the branding of Wix.

  • Tracking And Analytics 

Most website owners like to see how well their site is performing, which is done with Google Analytics or a few other similar tools. But to utilize these features with Wix, you must upgrade your account to a better and costlier plan. 

  • Sites are not transferrable.

One of the significant shortcomings of the usage of Wix is this. People cannot migrate their websites to any other site. Of course, many website owners will have issues with this.

For instance, if you own a business that has grown over the years, you may want to move to a better and more prominent platform. If you are hosted on Wix, you can migrate your data, and there are some free tools available that you can use, but this can be complex for beginners. Wix does not have a specific tool that allows you to migrate your data to another hosting provider.

Comparison between Bluehost and Wix

Bluehost vs. Wix: Features

First of all, Bluehost offers several impressive features, including unlimited email accounts and unlimited bandwidth, but there is no option for unlimited storage space. Its main features are exceptional performance, a great customer support system, and affordable pricing. While Wix.com is known as a top-notch platform that offers web-based hosting services, and this platform hosts millions of websites all over the globe. Tons of features are provided by Wix including more than 500 different types of templates as well as a simple interface.

Bluehost vs. Wix: WordPress hosting

One particular area where Bluehost beats Wix clearly is the area of WordPress hosting. WordPress is a great blogging platform that services the needs of millions of sites worldwide. Statistically, over 25% of websites on the internet today are hosted by Bluehost, and Bluehost is clearly the most preferred web hosting service between these two platforms. In fact, there are hardly any web hosting services on this planet that can compete favorably with Bluehost in terms of hosting in general.

So, when it comes to WordPress hosting, Bluehost beats most other hosting sites, not just Wix.

For our Bluehost vs. Wix comparison, Wix lacks WordPress hosting services. Of course, this noticeable drawback makes lots of people not even consider Wix for hosting their websites at all. If you decide to go with Wix, then you are basically stuck in Wix’s own ecosystem, as they are not an open-source platform like WordPress.

Bluehost vs. Wix: Integration of plugins and features

If you want to use a particular framework or prefer building your website with CMS, you can always rely on Bluehost to get the job done. Its flexibility is perhaps one of the main reasons why millions of people always put it ahead of other platforms.

On Wix, there are tons of in-built features. Therefore, you do not have to endure the stress of integrating the features. So, all you have to do is to create a Wix account and launch your digital store almost immediately. Of course, you need to buy a suitable plan to start using the platform. Afterward, everything is done for you, and you can enjoy its unique features. This makes Wix much easier to use when compared to Bluehost. So, regarding the ease of setup of Bluehost vs. Wix, Wix is the clear winner. 

Bluehost vs. Wix: Support system

The support system of Bluehost is excellent, as you can contact the support team through different means. Bluehost’s customers support team usually responds within 5 minutes or so. Similarly, Wix has a great support system, and you can get in touch with them through several means. In addition, many online communities are available to cater to your needs and solve any problems you might have in an instant. Also, you have access to many online forums, articles, and more. So in terms of support, both platforms have excellent customer support, but we would have to give the edge to Bluehost as we found their support reps to be slightly more knowledgeable.

Bluehost vs. Wix: Speed

Bluehost has an average load speed of just over 1 second. Compared to many similar platforms, this speed is outstanding and you will have no issues with your websites on Bluehost. Also, this will be vital to ranking your website on search engines. On the other hand, Wix has an average loading time of almost 3 seconds. This is relatively okay, but Bluehost is obviously better in this aspect.

Bluehost vs. Wix: Money-back guarantee

When you buy a Bluehost plan, you are automatically entitled to a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you are unsatisfied with the service, the company will refund you if you contact them within 30 days of your purchase. In the case of Wix, there is no money-back guarantee. However, you can enjoy a 14-day try-out period. Within 14 days, you should be able to know whether the platform is suitable for your needs or not.

Bluehost vs. Wix: E-commerce setup

If you want to use Bluehost to set up an e-commerce store, there are tons of e-commerce programs for you in cPanel. Bluehost offers a WooCommerce hosting plan specifically for those looking to build eCommerce stores. However, you have to create your e-commerce sites using Bluehost’s tools. Generally, this is time-consuming and laborious, and you also need some skills. As for Wix, everything has been designed to make you easily create your online store. Its e-commerce web builder also gives you access to several features that will speed up the creation of an online store.

Verdict

Let’s bring our Bluehost vs. Wix debate to an end. Generally, both platforms are great, and they offer varying options of features that will make you enjoy being on either platform. However, if you like using WordPress, you should go for Bluehost because Wix does not support WordPress. Wix is particularly more suitable for people who want a cheap yet functional platform for hosting their sites. You do not need much technical know-how to get started on Wix. Nevertheless, you may require some levels of WordPress and web design skills to set up Bluehost successfully. 

Due to the difficulty with migrating data across different platforms, Bluehost is more recommended for people that need to expand and move to a better and bigger platform as their businesses develop. Bluehost also offers more options for customization, and Wix is more aimed at beginners or first-time users looking to make their first website.

Bluehost has an obvious edge over Wix, but Wix is not a bad option, especially if your budget is tight.

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